We’re discussing how CHCH’s all-day news experiment didn’t succeed, but we’re only able to do so because they tried. In the end, they were innovative and lessons from this experiment will prove to be part of the formula when a viable new business model for local television broadcast stations succeeds. It’s frustrating to watch seemingly helplessly as many lost their jobs at CHCH. We want to understand what happened – why didn’t the CHCH local news experiment succeed – and we want to know who to blame. Frustration at Channel Zero is growing as details emerge, their use of a shell company for CHCH’s liabilities and use of bankruptcy to avoid layoff notice, severance payments, and union collective agreement requirements is allowing us to point the finger squarely at them. While they mismanaged the ending in the demise of CHCH’s all-day local news format, they stepped in and tried to do something none of the big well financed media companies are doing – they were aggressive in trying to make local broadcast television work. The demise of CHCH’s experiment is nationally relevant. They were the last canary in the local broadcast coalmine. CHCH is one of only two remaining independent broadcasters in Canada, the other CHEK is in Victoria. (To clarify, this means they no affiliation agreement with the networks) CHCH innovated on the business side and those innovations – the targeting of advertising by postal code and their viewer loyalty program, among others – must be noted for future attempts by CHCH and others to save local television broadcasting. Channel Zero says CHCH even became profitable for a short period of time peaking in 2012. Does this mean local television broadcast can work? Maybe, and the lessons learned at CHCH could be used to save local television news if large media companies divest themselves of local stations. On Friday, the Sword of Damocles above the station fell. At 4 p.m., all 129 full-time and 28 part-time employees were terminated, the company (Channel 11 L.P.) they worked for went into bankruptcy, and the Chairman and CEO of parent company Channel Zero came onto the air with a pre-recorded message. Romen Podzyhun confirmed the rumours which swirled during the day: CHCH’s losses are part of a national trend for local broadcasters, CRTC figures show significant review declines year-over-year for broadcasters with the overall sector unprofitable. In 2011, combined revenue for 93 stations was $2,144,290,861. In 2014, for 92 stations, revenue was $1,803,682,152 with expenses of $1,845,026,887 – the sector as a whole is losing money. This week, CHCH goes from 80 hours per week of local news broadcasts to 17.5 hours per week. CHCH’s 6 p.m. newscast remains. At 11 p.m., the late night newscast returns to a 30-minute format. The morning show runs from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., instead of its previous 6 a.m. to 10 a.m. format. The Early Edition which ran from 4 a.m. to 6 a.m. is cancelled. Like so many Hamiltonians, I had a wide range of emotions and really struggled with deciding how to view Friday’s events. It is painful for us as a community and while it doesn’t feel so, we’re fortunate that we’re feeling this pain in 2015. Other cities of our size witnessed the decrease in local television news during the Great Recession of 2008 and the years that followed. Instead of experiencing this collapse, we had Channel Zero which came along and reinvigorated CHCH. Today, what we are left with is what cities of our size in the rest of the country already had for the past half-decade. CHEK – which like CHCH was facing going off-air in 2009 as Canwest’s E stations collapsed – offers 12 hours of local news programming per week. By that measure, Hamilton is still getting a better deal than other comparable cities. In this February 2009 clip from CHCH’s Talk Show Square Off, Peter Miller CEO S-VOX operator of Vision TV and Lise Lareau of the Canadian Media Guild discuss the crisis in local broadcast news. Miller says CHCH’s then 36.5 required hours of local content was not sustainable. He says starting at 2:35 the “most appropriate” requirement for CHCH is 15.5 hours. So who is to blame? Channel Zero is definitely to blame for the corporate shell game which sees them able to bankrupt the obligations to employees by having the stations liabilities in one corporation Channel 11 L.P. and the assets in another. The Hamilton Spectator reports Channel 11 L.P. owes employees $1.62-million and overall, the shell corporation owes millions to other creditors. (Read the full details on TheSpec.com) The reasons leading to the demise are many, and as much as we’d like to tar and feather Channel Zero right now, they are not the culprit in the demise of local broadcasting. At first, I pointed my suspicions at the CRTC.